Kiera Hudson & The Creeping Men (3 page)

“Mr. Potter?” the woman asked, pushing her chair back from the table and standing.

“Yes.” Potter nodded back at her.

I could see by the way her hand trembled when she offered it to Potter to shake that she was incredibly nervous. But it wasn’t just that. It was the way her eyes kept furtively looking around the pub, as if she feared she was being watched.

“I’m Ms. Heather Locke,” she said, swallowing hard to hide the waver in her voice. She glanced at me, then back at Potter again. “I thought you were coming alone?”

“This is my associate Kiera Hudson,” Potter said. “You can speak as freely in front of her as you can me. We will
both
keep whatever you have to tell us in complete confidence.”

I was pleased to discover that this Potter could speak with a professional air when he needed – or wanted to. He didn’t always sound like an arrogant toss-pot. Cautiously, Heather Locke offered me her hand. I took it, giving a gentle but brisk shake. She was rake thin and wore a green coat buttoned up the front. A plain dress hung just over her knees, and I couldn’t help but notice that there were flecks of mud over her shoes and up her shin. I could
see
at once that it was her bicycle outside against the wall, and she had ridden it to meet Potter, mud spraying up as she had passed through some puddles. She had cycled, despite having access to a Land Rover 4X4. It was obvious to me that something had been troubling her deeply for the last few weeks. She had slept restlessly, had spent many hours reading and writing. Heather Locke was not married, despite being in her late forties.

“Perhaps we should all sit down,” Potter said, taking charge of the situation. “Can I get you anything – a drink, perhaps?”

“No,” Locke said, sitting back down, wringing her hands together. Again she glanced over in the direction of the door.

I sat next to Potter on the opposite side of the table from her.

“How can I help you?” Potter asked.

“I don’t even know where to start,” she said, fingering the Land Rover key fob that hung from her purse on the table.

“Why not at the beginning,” I said softly.

“Yeah, that’s just what I was going to say,” Potter said, placing his elbows on the table, trying to take up as much space as possible and nudging me into the background.

“Okay,” Locke said, swallowing hard again and focusing her attention on Potter. I sat back in my chair, arms crossed over my chest. Watching.
Seeing.

“I am employed by Sir Edmund Lovecraft and live with him at his home Bastille Hall…” she started.

“Are you his lover… his mistress?” Potter asked, shaking a cigarette from the pack he had pulled from his jacket pocket.

Oh Christ,
I sighed inside. Perhaps Potter wasn’t as professional as I hoped he would be when needed.

“No!” Locke balked, straightening up in her seat as if she’d been physically slapped.

“Just wondering – trying to get a feel of the whole situation between you and this Lovecraft dude,” Potter said, lighting a cigarette.

“There is no
situation
between me and Sir Edmund,” Locke said with a brisk shake of her head. “And there never has been.”

“Okay, if you’re sure,” Potter said, blowing cigarette smoke out of his nostrils. “But in my experience, it’s not often that a man and woman can live together without there being a little bit of jiggy-jiggy…”

“You’re not allowed to smoke in here,” I cut in, trying to save his arse before she slapped his face and marched out.

“What?” he glared.

“Look,” I said, pointing up at the wall. “See the
No Smoking
sign?”

Potter glanced up at the wall. Then leaning over the table, he opened a nearby window and inched his chair toward it. Looking at me, he drew deeply on his cigarette, blowing the smoke out of the window. “Happy now?” he said. But before I’d had a chance to say anything, he was looking at Locke again. “Where were we? Okay, right… you were telling us that this Edmund guy isn’t giving you one… so why are you living with him? Are you just friends, or what?”

“No,” Locke said, a look of disdain on her ashen face. And I suspected that if she wasn’t in such desperate need of help, she would have got up and left by now. “Sir Edmund is my employer.”

“He employs you to do what, exactly?” Potter asked, squirting another stream of blue smoke from the corner of his mouth, which drifted over Locke’s shoulder and out of the window.

“I have been his daughter’s nanny for the last sixteen years,” she said, her tired eyes beginning to look flushed with tears. She swallowed hard again, fighting them back. “I’ve been her teacher, carer – why, I’ve been like a mother to that girl.”

“Where is her real mother?” I dared to ask. Potter shot me a look, but I ignored it and wouldn’t meet his stare.

“Her mother died during childbirth,” Locke explained. “The child, Amanda Lovecraft, was just six weeks old when I was employed by her father to take care of her. I did everything for the girl. And because we spent so much time together, a part of me loved Amanda as if she were my own daughter, even though I knew in my heart that she wasn’t. But when you bring a child up, bathe them, pick them up when they fall down, nurse them when they are sick, teach them to read and write… you can’t help but become emotionally involved with them.” I watched Locke absentmindedly rub her bare index finger. The finger where most women of her age would wear a wedding ring or engagement ring at least. “I know it sounds unprofessional of me, but not ever having any children of my own and never been married, I grew to love Amanda as if she were my own daughter. And I believe that she looked upon me – loved me – as if I were her mother.”

“Where is Amanda now?” I asked, sitting forward in my seat now. “You keep talking as if she has gone…”

“She has,” Locke said, glancing up at me, eyes red-rimmed.

“Gone where?” Potter asked, as if reminding us both that he was still there - that this was his investigation and he was in charge of it.

“That I don’t really know,” Locke said back. “And that’s why I need your help, Mr. Potter. I need you to find out what has happened to her.”

“I’m sorry,” Potter said, flicking the butt of his cigarette out of the window and standing up. “Missing person enquiries aren’t really my thing. Perhaps you should try speaking to the official police.”

“I can’t go to the police,” she said, a pleading look in her eyes. “If Sir Edmund were to discover that I’d spoken to you about this matter, let alone the police, he would dismiss me for sure.”

“Why?” Potter asked. “Isn’t he concerned about what has happened to his missing daughter?”

Locke looked up at Potter then across the table at me, where I still sat. Potter might not be interested, but every investigative fibre in my body was screaming with joy. I had a mystery to solve – missing person or not. Then dropping her voice to nothing more than a hush, Locke said, “Although Sir Edmund would never admit it, I think there is something very unnatural about what has happened to young Amanda.”

“Unnatural, how?” I asked, staring across the table at Locke, while reaching up and yanking on Potter’s sleeve, tugging him back down into his seat, wanting him to stay.

“There is something so strange about Amanda’s disappearance that it terrifies me,” Locke whispered. “And although Sir Edmund wouldn’t admit to it, I think he is terrified, too.”

“You’ve got ten minutes,” Potter said, lighting another cigarette. “And what you say better be good, Ms. Locke, because I have a stroppy-as-hell fiancée to go and sort out, and she terrifies the shit out of me too.”

“It was just a few weeks ago that I went to Amanda’s room to find her bed empty,” Heather Locke, began to explain. “I knew it was unlike Amanda to wake before me, or even her father, who did like to linger in bed all morning unless he had some pressing parliamentary business to attend to. Being a member of the House of Lords, Sir Edmund could often be away or abroad. But when he was at home, he could be a late riser if he wished to be.

“But Amanda was sixteen after all, and like most teenagers, she had come to love her bed and was often reluctant to be hoisted out of it much before lunch on a weekend. So it was with some surprise that I went to her room one Saturday morning to discover that her bed hadn’t been slept in,” Locke said.

“How can you be so sure her bed hadn’t been slept in?” Potter asked, taking a notebook and pencil from his jacket pocket.

He was taking notes now!
I thought, nearly falling from off my chair in surprise. The Potter I had known had never written anything down as far as I could remember. He’d used his hands to fight. With a sideways glance, I watched Potter’s strong-looking hands grip the notepad and pencil as he made some notes, and I couldn’t help but remember what those hands had felt like as he had held me – touched me with them.

“Her bed had been made, that’s how I knew Amanda hadn’t slept in it,” Locke said, jarring me from my memories of Potter and me together. “Ever since she had been a child, I’d made Amanda’s bed for her and Sir Edmund’s too. I was cook and housekeeper, as well as nurse to Amanda.”

“Sounds like a right barrel of laughs,” Potter muttered under his breath, scribbling again in his notebook.

“Sorry?” Locke asked.

“Nothing,” Potter said, glancing up from his notebook. “Please continue with your interesting story.”

Potter tried to sound enthused, but I knew that he wasn’t really. So why make notes? I couldn’t help but wonder.

“After discovering that Amanda hadn’t slept in her bed, I searched the house and then the grounds.”

“Grounds?” I asked.

“Bastille Hall is set in over one hundred acres of its own land,” Locke explained. “There is a wood, a river runs through it, and there is a most excellent orchard. Amanda would spend many happy hours scrumping as a child and fishing from the…”

“Has the apple picking and fishing got anything to do with her disappearance?” Potter sighed, sneaking a quick glance at his wristwatch.

“No,” Locke said.

“Then, just the facts, please, Ms. Locke.” He forced a smile back at her, then lit another cigarette.

Waving the smoke away from in front of her face, Heather Locke continued her story.

The layout of the grounds could be important, I wanted to tell him. If we were going to do a thorough investigation, the grounds of Bastille Hall needed to be searched. The fact that there was a wood and a river could be important. Amanda could have fallen down, injured herself and died, or drowned in the river.

“How thoroughly did you search the grounds?” I asked Locke with a smile.

“The best that I could,” she said. “But it seemed I was just wasting my time.”

“I could have told you that,” Potter muttered just out of earshot of his client.

But I heard it. I glared at him.

I was surprised that his detective agency ever had any clients if this was how he treated them all. He grinned back at me with that obnoxious look on his face. The one I had so often wanted to wipe from his face.

“Why did you think that you had been wasting your time?” I asked. I was interested in her story, even if Potter wasn’t.

“Fearing that something terrible had happened to Amanda, I went to Sir Edmund’s room,” Locke explained. “There was no answer. So after calling out his name several times, I entered his room. To my shock, I was surprised to see that his bed hadn’t been slept in either. Leaving his room, I began to wonder if perhaps Sir Edmund hadn’t taken his daughter away someplace for the evening – perhaps to London to see a show. But in my heart I knew this couldn’t be so, as I had seen them both late the night before. I had seen them both go to their rooms.”

“And what time was that?” I asked.

“Amanda went up to her room at nine, like she did most nights, and Sir Edmund followed close behind at about half past the hour,” Locke said. “It was somewhat earlier than he would usually go to his room, but still too late to travel to London to see a show. The night train would have departed already.”

Potter scribbled something else down into his notebook, the smouldering cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. “Go on,” he said without looking up.

“So fearing that something terrible had happened, although for the life of me I couldn’t think what, I tried to reach both of them on their mobile phones,” she said. “I called Sir Edmund first. After all, he is the master of the house. But there was no signal. It was like he had switched his phone off. So I then tried to make contact with Amanda. But just like her father’s phone, it had been switched off. All day I paced the house, fearing that some tragedy had befallen the both of them. I wanted to call the police…”

“So why didn’t you?” Potter asked, looking up, pencil poised over his notepad.

“Like I said before,” Locke explained, “Sir Edmund is a member of the House of Lords and a highly respected member of society. I was scared that if I called the police, I might bring some scandal to him. So as it grew dark outside, I decided that if they hadn’t returned by early next morning, I would indeed go to the police.”

“And did they?” Potter asked, cocking an eyebrow at her.

“Just one of them,” Locke said. “Sir Edmund. He must have returned during the night. For when I woke, he was already up and sitting at the kitchen table fully dressed. I later checked his bed and it was as it was before. Untouched.”

“And what excuse did he give for his and his daughter’s sudden disappearance?” Potter asked.

“When I asked him where young Miss Amanda was, Sir Edmund simply said that he had sent her abroad,” Locke explained, a haunted look in her eyes as she stared at us. “When I asked what he meant, he said in a dismissive tone, ‘I’ve sent Amanda to study at a private school in Switzerland.’

“‘Switzerland?’ I had gasped, my heart feeling as if it had broken. ‘Why so far away?’

“‘That is where the best schools are,’ he said, getting up from the table and looking out across the lawns toward the wood. ‘You have done your best at teaching my daughter, Ms. Locke, and I am very grateful to you, but it is time that Amanda had a full and proper education.’

“‘But when will she be home again?’ I asked, so unhappy that I hadn’t been given the chance to say goodbye to Amanda after she had become such a large and loving part of my life.

“‘I expect she will be abroad for many years to come,’ Sir Edmund said, still looking vacantly through the window toward the wood.

“‘Years?’ I gasped, tears welling in my eyes. ‘But…’

“‘No, buts,’ he said, turning on me, his voice suddenly angry. He had never spoken to me in such a way before and I flinched away from him. ‘Now that Amanda has gone, I will no longer be in need of your services, so I would like you to leave at once.’

“‘But I have been in your service for sixteen years,’ I reminded him, sniffing back my tears. ‘I have no family… no other place to go. I will be out on the streets.’

“‘Very well then,’ Sir Edmund said, turning back to the window. ‘I give you four weeks’ notice – four weeks to make your arrangements, then you must be gone. I will make sure that you receive a very healthy severance pay.’

“‘It’s not the money, sir…’ I started.

“‘Please, Ms. Locke, I have said all there is to say on the matter. My mind is made up,’ he said, his back to me. ‘Please don’t make this any harder for either of us than it has to be. Now I’d be grateful if you went back to you chores.’

“‘Yes, sir,’ I said, fighting back my tears and turning away.

“At the door, he called after me and said, ‘Should anyone ask you where Miss Amanda is, you tell them, like I have told you, she has gone abroad to be educated. Now that is all I have to say about my daughter. Please don’t raise the subject again while you remain in my employment.’

“‘Yes, sir,’ I said, lowering my head and leaving the room.”